First trim your bottle down so you just have the very
bottom (parents should exercise caution and do this step if children are not
proficient with scissors).

Now trace the turtle pattern or draw your own onto the
craft foam. Cut out.

Draw eyes and other features. My boys were too excited to
spend much time on details. They wanted to get their turtles in the water! We're
lucky "Lightning" and "Green Lantern" were even given eyes.

Next, apply a few dots of hot glue on the cut edge of
your bottle and place it on your turtle, giving him his shell. The glue is
optional, but helps to keep it in place as little hands stitch thread over and
around the shell. (In hindsight, you could probably just glue the shell on, but
I like the look of the yarn and it gave my kids some great fine motor practice.)

Then, thread long lengths of yarn onto a darning needle.
Tie at knot at one end. Have kids pull the needle up from the bottom of the
turtle and bring it back down through the foam on the other side of the shell,
stitching a asterisk type of pattern. Sewing was my oldest son's favorite part
of the project (who knew?!?). When done, either knot the yarn on the back or
glue it down.

Now add a button with glue to the top of the shell where
the yarn intersects to keep it from slipping off the turtle's back.

Take your turtles to the water (in our case, the bathtub)
and watch them float on the surface!

Want a great book to pair
with this activity?

Our oldest son (age 9) really liked Gail Gibbon's book Sea Turtles. It covered everything from
the anatomy of sea turtles to the threats to their existence. Details, details,
details, and beautiful watercolor illustration to go with them - that's what
you and your kids can expect.

Our youngest son (age 5)
and I read the Level 2 National Geographic Kids easy reader titled Sea Turtles. Author Laura Marsh,
provides basic information in the main text and the opportunity for readers to
dig deeper with turtle terms, extra facts, and even fun jokes. This book is
scalable to kids of many ages. Pick how much to read and share depending on
your child's attention span and level of comprehension. Or for children who are
reading, hand them the book and let them choose!

Consider your child's proficiency with numbers. You may
want to only play with numbers 0-5. If so, print the first three pages of the
8-page PDF onto green cardstock. Otherwise, if you're playing with the full set
of numbers (0-10), print the first six pages onto green cardstock.

Print the pages of water lilies and die onto white
cardstock. Again, think of your child's early math skills. If playing with numbers 0-5 print one die. If playing with
0-10, the child will either have to roll the die twice or you can create two
dice to have the child roll. The latter is perfect for kids that still need to
see the objects to count them. Older kids working on simple addition might enjoy
the challenge of adding the two numbers in their head after rolling the same
die twice.

Cut out the water lilies, lily pads, and die (or dice, if
you printed two). Score the lines on the die with the backside of a butter
knife, fold and glue into a cube shape. You can laminate the lily pads and
flowers for added durability if desired.

How to Play

Set the lily pads on the floor in a random pattern.

Because we were doing this activity on hardwood floors
and I didn't want my son to slip on the lily pads, I used poster tack to secure
them in place. I also added a piece of poster tack to the back of each water
lily flower.

Here's the play-by-play:

1. Child rolls the die (or dice).

2. Child counts the frog faces that land face up.

3. Child looks for the lily pad with that numeral.

4. Child jumps to the lily pad.

5. Child places a water lily on the lily pad to signal
that he/she has already visited there.

6. Play continues until all lily pads have a flower or
the child's attention wanes.

Variations: You can time the child to see how many
different lily pads they jump to in 5-10 minutes. An opponent can then take
their turn and try to beat the first player's score.

Want a great book to pair with this activity? Here's a
few counting frog picture books we read. They're all perfect for this fun game.

We would love to have you link up your School-Age Post (Ages 5 and up) about your learning week after school including Crafts, Activities, Playtime and Adventuresthat you are doing to enrich your children's lives after their day at school, home school, or on the weekend!

When linking up, please take a moment to comment on at least one post linked up before yours and grab our after school button to include a link on your post or site! By linking up, you're giving permission for us to share on our After School Pinterest Board and feature an image on our After School Party in the upcoming weeks!

Friday, August 22, 2014

Our youngest son (who just turned 5 years old) can be
convinced to do anything if it's a race. It has been this way for awhile now,
and while we're certainly not trying to turn everything into a competition,
whenever possible to use it as motivation, we do.

This little game is an example.

To work on counting and review some letters, I grabbed
six small matchbox cars and a die. I labeled the cars with six different
letters. I printed the letters on sticker paper, but simple masking tape and a
fine-tip permanent marker works just as well.

After printing the game board on cardstock and taping it
together, he was ready to race! (Click the image to download a 2-page PDF of the game board for free from Google Drive.)

To put him in the mood for our game, we read The Racecar
Alphabet by Brian Floca. It was the perfect pairing for this activity!

Here's how we played.

All cars were placed to the left of the starting line.

My son rolled the die and counted the dots on the side of
the die that landed on top.

Then he found the numeral on the game board.

"What car is in that lane?" I asked.

"The 'S' car!" he'd reply and then moved the
race car one space forward.

He continued to roll, count, find the lane on the game
board, announce the letter on the car, and move it until one car (the "G" car) passed the
finish line and won the race!

Wednesday, August 20, 2014

Both my boys had birthday parties in the last two weeks.
With parents and siblings invited to both, we bought a surplus of cake plates
so we wouldn't be short. Well, of course, we had extras. Lots of them.

We could either buy more cake or make an awesome
polyhedron. I chose the latter. It's less calories.

My oldest son looked at me like I was crazy when I gave
him a stack of paper party plates and a stapler and said, "Let's make a
ball!"

The paper plate polyhedron requires 20 disposable paper
plates. The smaller your plates, the smaller the ball. We used dessert plates
and our ball ended up to be about 1 1/2 feet diameter.

Here's how we did it.

First do your best to flatten 20 disposable paper plates.
You will need five for the top, five for the bottom, and 10 for the middle.

All the plates need to be folded the same. Make three
folds in each plate, folding in the sides so the middle of the plate is an
equilateral triangle.

I made my son a template to help him fold.

Begin stapling the flaps of five plates together, until
they form the following shape. (We used two staples on each flap.) This is the
ball's top.

Repeat to make the ball's bottom with five more plates.

Now to make the middle. Staple the flaps of the plates
together so that the points of the triangles alternate up and down so you have
a strip of 10 plates.

Bring the ends of the strip together and staple so it's
shaped like a donut.

Set the top on your paper plate donut and line up the plate
flaps. Staple in place.

Flip over and add the bottom, lining up the flaps, and
stapling. Voila! You're done!

At the precise moment we finished, a neighbor boy came
over. He was equally as impressed as my sons and I.

Want to up the challenge? Show kids a finished example
and ask them to replicate it without instructions. Or simply see what they can come up with using the folded plates. I love the sculptural effect! One part
art, one part engineering … now that's what I call some great after school
learning!

Want to make a different polyhedron? Want a harder project? Check out this
one made entirely out of cut paper!

We would love to have you link up your School-Age Post (Ages 5 and up) about your learning week after school including Crafts, Activities, Playtime and Adventuresthat you are doing to enrich your children's lives after their day at school, home school, or on the weekend!

When linking up, please take a moment to comment on at least one post linked up before yours and grab our after school button to include a link on your post or site! By linking up, you're giving permission for us to share on our After School Pinterest Board and feature an image on our After School Party in the upcoming weeks!

Friday, August 15, 2014

This activity is perfect for talking about balance,
counter balance, and center of gravity with your kids. It takes only a few minutes and a
handful of supplies.

What You Need

1 hex nut (ours was 3/8 inch)

4 wooden craft sticks

hot glue

Wire (ours was 18 gauge copper wire)

How to Build It

Using a hot glue gun, glue the four craft sticks in the
configuration of a stick figure.

Cut a length of wire approximately 12-15 inches long.
Wrap one end around the leg of your stick figure. Wrap the other end of the
wire around the hex nut.

Shape the wire so it's curved and looks like the letter C.

Now simply place the wire-wrapped leg of the stick figure
on your finger and be amazed. The figure will balance there with ease.

If he's tipping forward or backwards, adjust the curve of
the wire and reposition him.

This quick craft elicited loads of oohs and aahs at my
house. I think the highlight was when both of my sons tried to find various
places to set the balancing man - ranging from the edge of the kitchen table to
the top of my husband's head (yes, it actually DID balance there too!).

This great activity came from Curt Gabrielson's book Stomp Rockets, Catapults, and Kaleidoscopes:
30+ Amazing Science Projects You Can Build for Less than $1. I highly
recommend it!

Wednesday, August 13, 2014

It's been ages since I snuck some art history into our
after school learning. This project combines mixed media, three-dimensions, and
melting (yep, that's right - melting!) - all of which made this a little more palatable
for my art-avoiding oldest son.

Wassily Kandinsky is considered the pioneer of abstract
art. His works were perfect to explore with my son who has the opinion that if
your art doesn't look like real life, it's no good. We talked a lot about the
criticism that Kandinsky must have faced.

Color the outside of the cups with bands of color using
permanent markers. Start by coloring a circle in the middle of the cup's bottom
and continue outward using a variety of colors in varying thicknesses.

When you're done, use scissors to trim the lip of the cup
off.

Place the cups two inches apart on a parchment
paper-lined jelly roll pan.

Preheat an oven to 250 degrees F. for a few minutes. Then
put the pan of cups into the oven and watch the magic happen through the window
on the door.

Our cups didn't flatten completely, but the translucent
colors of the marker became vivid and solid. The effect was truly magical.

To finish, cut colored squares of construction (or
cardstock) paper. Glue to a piece of flat cardboard or mat board, and with hot
glue, adhere the melted cup circles. Display in a shadow box frame.

Read

To enhance my fourth grade son's understanding and
appreciation for Kandinsky's art, we read a wonderful fiction book by Barb Rosenstock.
The Noisy Paint Box: The Colors and
Sounds of Kandinsky's Abstract Art explains beautifully the wonderful
integration of music and art in Kandinsky's work by watching his interest in
art grow and develop from the time of childhood.

Monday, August 11, 2014

While you may have found this linky to be a great way to help ward off the summer slump, I hope you'll continue to join us each Monday as the school year gets underway. There's always room for more learning at home!

We would love to have you link up your School-Age Post (Ages 5 and up) about your learning week after school including Crafts, Activities, Playtime and Adventuresthat you are doing to enrich your children's lives after their day at school, home school, or on the weekend!

When linking up, please take a moment to comment on at least one post linked up before yours and grab our after school button to include a link on your post or site! By linking up, you're giving permission for us to share on our After School Pinterest Board and feature an image on our After School Party in the upcoming weeks!

Friday, August 8, 2014

I'm embarrassed to admit that we've been lax in helping our little guy (who is no longer little) learn his letters. He's starting alternative kindergarten in a little over a week and with that deadline rapidly approaching, we've been ramping up the literacy learning this summer.With very little prep, I was able to whip together a simple memory game to work on the ABCs.

I already had the Alphabet Blackout call cards, so I printed a second set. You can download them free here; print two sets of pages 4-6.

I picked letters from my son's name and a few others that he struggles with for a total of 16 cards (8 letters). Use more or less depending on your child's attention span and proficiency.We scrambled them up and laid them face down and each boy took their turn flipping over two cards at a time to try and get a match of two of the same letter. If one of them got a match, they could take another turn. Otherwise, play alternated between the two.

The winner is the player with the most matches when all the cards have been paired up.

Featured Post

Four supplies - five if your kids are artistic - are all it takes to make artificial fish swim. This was loads of fun, which is my favorite...

Search This Blog

PERMISSIONS

Relentlessly Fun, Deceptively Educational blog content may not be republished elsewhere without express written permission from the blog owner. Free printables are for your use at home and in the classroom, NOT for resale. If you have questions regarding this policy, contact deceptivelyeducational (at) gmail.com.

If you are a teacher and need to request access to my printables through Google Drive, use your personal email address. In many cases, your school blocks emails coming from outside their domain, thereby prohibiting me from granting you access and notifying you via email.